Worrying about it getting worse.

[BrokenAge]

My anxiety and OCD don't effect my life a whole lot. They do cause stress and depression but when I'm not home I feel almost like a new person. I'm online schooled so I rarely leave my house. Usually only once or twice a week at most. All my problems come from just being isolated. I'm just sit and dwell on everything. I'm afraid my anxiety and OCD will get worse. I don't know if any of you have a Facebook but I saw this man with OCD reading a poem and he was blinking and speaking quite fast and rapid and it looked like he's suffering costantly. Horrified me, surely I can't get that bad? I'm nothing like that. I just have intrusive thoughts. That's all I've known from my OCD and anxiety but I ask myself the one thing "what if" and I worry about it for a good 5-10 minuets. I'm afraid I'll lose myself in this illness. Afraid I'll become some mentally unstable monster. I just want to live and enjoy life. Not always worry about every thing.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hi Nick,

Have a look at post #31 in this thread. It will tell you my OCD behaviours BUT the reason I'm posting this is because I want you to understand that it is possible to come back from something that feels quite severe. You've spoken to me a few times on here so you will know if I'm spending my days suffering in spirals of panic & anxiety or not:

http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=169503&page=4

That was me a few years ago. Do you think that is me now?

So, even if it were to happen, it doesn't mean you are stuck that way. That I can attest to and I thought back then that I was stuck like that forever. Since then (not when I wrote the post, it was before I joined NMP) I've beaten my compulsions, beaten my intrusive thoughts (they came back recently and I've worked through them again and seem to have beaten the new "flavour" they took) but I still have many things to correct including obsessions which are deep for me.

I thought I was done for back then. It was 24/7 with both the GAD and the OCD, and the GAD was keeping the OCD at it's peak.

[BrokenAge]

I've noticed that with every worry I have only time can erase it. I've gone weeks without a single worry then I've gone weeks with only worries. It's just that when I'm all anxious I tend to over dramatize it. It feels like I'm really losing touch with reality. Thoughts of DP/DR spike and worries pop up. I also feel quite guilty saying I have OCD because I have not been diagnosed yet.

[MyNameIsTerry]

My GP has never diagnosed me, my therapist spotted it in the first appointment and updated my GP but he wasn't reading the reports hence I still only have GAD to him.

Don't worry about that at all. Don't diagnose yourself with something you haven't got but also don't feel guilty that because you haven't got a official diagnosis that you aren't "a member of the club"! :biggrin: Besides, no one on here would think any different of you and support you regardless.

When you go weeks without any worry, are you not anxious in general? If the answer is no and when your OCD returns it is because you are more anxious in general, you will find a lot of us are the same. My OCD is spiked by my GAD and my GAD is daily, hence my OCD is going to be there with it.

As an example, there are people on the HA board (all about obsessive thinking, OCD is one disorder that fits under HA when the obsessions are health based) who go away for weeks and come back saying the same as you - that they had a better few weeks and why has it all come back now. It never truly went, you have to deal with the triggers and behaviours to recover properly as well as your reactions and eventually you get there.

[BrokenAge]

I only have Intrusive thoughts when I'm anxious. Now I don't know the exact definition of an intrusive thought but to me it's a repetitive thought that creates worry but if I'm not anxious and have those thoughts they don't bother me at all but if I'm anxious before hand it creates stress. I mainly have ocd when I'm having high anxiety but regularly I just have thoughts like anyone else.

[MyNameIsTerry]

An intrusive thought is an unpleasant one that just pops into your head, one you haven't consciously tried to create. It can be repetitive, but if your thoughts are conscious as opposed to intrusive, it can other things like rumination, worry, etc.

[BrokenAge]

I have made a connection between anxiety and intrusive thoughts. When I feel anxious I instantly think about "what if I have an intrusive though" and then boom they happen but I'll have random thoughts that I notice others with HOCD worry about. Like I was walking past my dog and I crouched to pet her and thought "what if I just strangled my dog for no reason" now I instantly knew that I would never do that and the thought it's self didn't bother me at all so I just carried on and didn't think about it. Is that an intrusive thought?

[MyNameIsTerry]

That one with your dog is good example of an intrusive thought from the harm based theme. I have had loads of those. But it's really good that you only notice it and then let it go because this is what people with intrusive thoughts are striving to achieve as thoughts like that cause a response or panic or anxiety for them.

So, if you are thinking "what if I have an intrusive thought?" and then one that feels like the one you had about your dog in that scenario appears, you know how they feel.